Something huge happened on the 25th May, 2020 when Derek Chauvin and his “diligent colleagues” murdered George Floyd by crushing his ability to breathe, which resulted in his unnecessary death.
Unfortunately and very sadly this incident had happened many times before with black people in the United States where there still is a colossal problem with racism, which was clearly made worse by the hateful divisive rhetoric of Donald Trump who gave extra oxygen to this raw hatred, in some way justifying and even encouraging these actions by the perpetrators.
While the incident was unbearable to watch and quite inconceivable to a world audience, what made it “huge” isn’t that it happened, it is that we were able to see what happened with our own eyes.
While these policemen are all now equipped with body cameras (for transparency reasons and protection) it clearly makes no difference to their actions as their superiors are ignoring the evidence, but thankfully they can’t ignore what “we” record and what we are able to publish.
The George Floyd case is very similar to the equally shocking Ronald Greene “lynching” by police in Louisiana two years ago, where police footage has only now come to light (it was leaked) to show he was murdered and not involved in a one person car accident as reported.
In the case of George Floyd, 17 year old Darnella Frazier took out her mobile phone and was inspired to record the shocking incident that she was witnessing with her own eyes and she posted it on Facebook for us all to see.
Poor Darnella broke down in court because of the guilt of not being able to do more, but in truth what she did created a huge moment in time, one that will hopefully change our world for the better.
While I have many issues with where social media is going between the “selfie” perfect world scenario on one side and the vitriol on the other, with a smartphone and a public platform you too have the ability to change the world.
A regular 17 year old going about her business with her 9 year old cousin did that on the 25th May.
Greg
Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion Communications who offer Marketing, PR, Graphic Design and Digital Marketing services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland
Tags: Darnella Frazier, Fuzion Communications, George Floyd, Greg Canty
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